


the animal blood i was hiding from

by m3owww



Series: maribat [27]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Chinese Mythology & Folklore, F/M, Maribat March, Mythical Beings & Creatures, but i put my own bs spin on it to fuel the bad plot, i'm so sorry for this piece of absolute shit but hey it's a maribat march prompt!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29959896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m3owww/pseuds/m3owww
Summary: for Maribat March day 10 - Creatures and Cryptids.Her stomach ties itself into knots at the reminder that her beloved, the man she’d fallen in love with, was a hunter.And the creature that he was currently hunting was her.
Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Jason Todd
Series: maribat [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842979
Comments: 43
Kudos: 81





	the animal blood i was hiding from

**Author's Note:**

> from a prompt given by RayBell!
>
>> You are a creature and your beloved one is the hunter (they are not aware that you're a monster, you try to forget that you are a monster everyday, but the townsfolk just keeps on going on and on about the havoc you've caused (you didn't, it was the head of the town, he just pushed it all on the conveniently existing in town's vicinity magical creature)). They manage to wound you during the hunt (you didn't fight them back, you couldn't tolerate the thought of hurting them) and as they finish you off, pressing your head into the hard dirty ground with the heel of their boot, your transformation falls. You turn your head as much as you can to leave one last kiss (even if it is on the boot, even if you can taste your own blood). The last thing you remember is a sudden lack of pressure on your head and your beloved one screaming your name as you fade into the darkness
> 
> a little bit about the lore in here:
> 
> the _huli jing_ is a nine-tailed fox spirit from Chinese mythology that can shapeshift. their morality is ambiguous, like any other fox, but because their actions will always benefit them in some way or another, they're usually portrayed as malicious. while the _huli jing_ can take any human form, they tend to take on the form of beautiful young women in order to seduce men. in modern times, _huli jing_ is actually used as an insult for women who seduce already taken men. ~~that's stupid because it's not like the man doesn't willingly cheat on his wife/girlfriend with her-~~
> 
> anyway, some say that the _huli jing_ can only take a human form in the daytime, which I abided by for the most part. the part about side effects, though, is entirely new.
> 
> enjoy this mess :)
> 
> edit: I AM SO SORRY I FORGOT TO TAKE OUT THE PROMPT AT THE END SO IT WAS REALLY FUCKING WEIRD

“Morning, love,” Jason hums, bending down so his lips just barely brush her ear when he speaks.

She smiles, tilting her head upwards to give him a quick kiss. “Good morning,” She murmurs back. “How did last night go?”

She hates asking that question. Hates the reminder of who she is. No, _what_ she is. But he expects this question every morning, and so she asks the question, because he won’t suspect anything wrong and he can never, _ever_ know what she is.

“Great,” Jason’s lips curl upwards into a grin that always makes her heart beat a little faster. “We’re going to catch that _huli jing_ any day now, and then our town’s bad luck will stop. That fox is going to fall into one of our traps, I’ll put a couple bullets in it, and then _boom._ We’ll finally be free of that thing.”

Her stomach ties itself into knots at the reminder that her beloved, the man she’d fallen in love with, was a hunter.

And the creature that he was currently hunting was her.

She doesn’t want to die. Not really. She hates that she’s a _huli jing_ , hates that she has to spend her nights out as a nine-tailed fox spirit because the other option is a slow and painful death. She hates that she fell in love with someone who swore to track her down and kill her, and she knows that he’s going to succeed, eventually, because he’s good at what he does.

If she has to die, at least it’ll be at Jason’s hands.

Back when they’d first started dating, she tried to stop shifting. She curled up in her room at night and forced herself to stay in human form when every single part of her screamed at her to shift, to become a fox and run free in the woods.

The next day, she coughed up blood.

Still, she managed to stay human for a week, and she wouldn’t have cared if it only hurt her because she would at least die with Jason by her side, but it was hurting him, too. It hurt Jason to watch her suffer, and she couldn’t bring herself to continue hurting him.

So she shifted after the seventh day, feeling all her strength come back all at once and the magic of the fox flowing through her veins, and she hated every moment of it.

Now, she’s certain that she’ll be dead sometime within the week. It won’t be very quick, but he won’t make it unnecessarily long either, the way some other men in his hunting group want it to be. They cry out for blood, for torture and pain, but he is the leader and so they listen to him.

That doesn’t mean it won’t hurt, she knows. She’s okay with that. She has a plan and everything – she’ll shift back into human form right before he dies so he’ll know that she’s been the _huli jing_ all along. He hates monsters. He tells her so all the time, and the rest of the town isn’t any different. If she shifts back into human form, they’ll all know it’s her, and none of them will mourn her when she’s gone.

It hurts a little bit, to think that after everything she’s done, after she’s served every person in their little town at her bakery and sewed them clothes and blankets during harsher winters, they will spit on her name and move on as if she was never there. But how she feels doesn’t matter, because that’s the path that will bring everyone else, including Jason, the least amount of pain. He won’t be hurt by her death because he’ll realize that he’d never really loved her, anyway. How could he? After all, the creature he’d been hunting had been under his nose all along.

This plan is going to hurt her, she knows, but her feelings mean nothing, because she’s a _huli jing._ A monster.

She pads along the forest ground with light paws, her nine tails rustling gently behind her.

She doesn’t notice the tripwire in time, and startles when it sends off a flare, the orange soaring into the sky and bringing the shouts of men – the hunters – with it.

Every single part of her goes into survival mode, her instincts yelling at her to _run_ , because she will not fight Jason. She could incinerate them all with a well-placed spell, but she refuses to hurt him.

But she doesn’t run either, because there is nowhere to run. Yes, she can lead them on a chase through the forest, through the town, even, but they will always catch up eventually. She might as well just end the hunt here.

The first bullet buries itself in her side with a loud _crack_ , and two more quickly follow, because a single bullet is not enough to fell a fox spirit.

Three well-placed ones, however, can bring one to its knees and still keep it alive and breathing long enough for the leader of the hunting group to leer over it with a satisfied smirk that it always loved to see.

One of his boots lifts and then digs into her head, pressing it into the dirt and fallen leaves of the forest ground, which her blood is slowly seeping into. She turns her head, slowly, painfully, until her lips brush against the underside of his shoe to leave one last kiss, tasting her own blood on her lips when she pulls away.

This is it. This is the end for her. She’s now staring death in the face, getting closer to it with every passing moment and with no way to turn back.

With one last, rattling breath, she shifts back into a human as her vision starts darkening around the edges.

The last thing Marinette registers before everything goes black is the sudden lack of pressure on her head as someone screams her name.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on [tumblr](m3owww.tumblr.com)!


End file.
